Hidden Assassin 176

The sky was just starting to lighten, and Jia Ming bought some eight-treasure porridge being sold on the street outside the hospital. The flower shop next door had just opened, so he went in and bought a few roses, paired with asparagus fern and baby’s breath, wrapping them into a bouquet. The postman delivered the freshly printed Jiang Hai Daily, and Jia Ming glanced at the front page, which featured a large-scale crackdown on the underworld. Shaking his head and smiling, he couldn’t help but marvel at how quickly these newspapers responded.

He entered the hospital, and saw more than ten patients, led by Ye Lian, walking towards the inpatient department after their bandages were changed. They were laughing and talking. Fang Zitian and the others wouldn’t be staying in this hospital, and Jia Ming understood why these people were here. Yuan Lai Chao Chuang had just attempted an assassination, and even though he had failed, he was likely still lurking in Jiang Hai. These people coming to secretly look after Sha Sha, who was hospitalized, was essentially a way of showing their goodwill to Jian Suyan.

Seeing Jia Ming approaching, Ye Lian and the group pointed and talked, discussing him for quite a while. They were probably telling their companions that he was one of the three children. Last night, Jia Ming had encountered many of them, but now, he looked like a completely different person. He wore an ill-fitting school uniform, his hair was slightly messy, his face was plain, he carried two backpacks—his and Ling Jing’s—on his shoulders, a thermos of eight-treasure porridge in his left hand, and a bouquet of flowers in his right. He was just a nondescript 15 or 16-year-old boy. While his height couldn’t be changed, no one would ever associate him with the powerful and graceful Jian Suyan from last night.

Knowing Yuan Lai Chao Chuang’s personality, Jia Ming was fairly certain he wouldn’t try to harm Sha Sha again. But nothing was absolute, so he was grateful that the Yan Huang Jue Xing (Awakening of the Yanhuang) people were here to help with security, even though it wasn’t much. Sha Sha and Ling Jing meant more to him than the entire world, and he always felt that the Yan Huang Jue Xing had treated him with sincerity.

In fact, Jia Ming didn’t hold any animosity towards Pei Luo Jia, nor did he have any strong sense of patriotism. Looking back, if he had been more ruthless and hadn’t saved Marilyn or Yue Chi Xun, he wouldn’t have been driven by a sense of crisis to transfer those 70 billion yuan to Kelly Vanim, which in turn wouldn’t have led to the Xingmeng Hao incident. If this chain of events hadn’t happened, things would have been much easier for him. But since it had already happened, there was no point in reflecting on it. What he wanted from a do-over was freedom. If he couldn’t do the things he wanted to do, then what was the point? That was why he had to step in and save Fang Zitian and the others. The Yan Huang Jue Xing was a buffer between him and Pei Luo Jia, and if this buffer disappeared, he would undoubtedly be caught in Pei Luo Jia’s wrath.

Entering the hospital room corridor, a few Sha Zhu Gang (Bamboo Gang) thugs sat outside Sha Sha’s room. Jia Ming greeted them and pushed open the door. Ling Jing was putting on clothes on a bed next to Sha Sha’s. When she saw someone enter, she quickly pulled up her blanket to cover her entire body. Only after recognizing him did she put the blanket down, giving him a gentle glare. Then she said, “Watch out for anyone coming in,” and then proceeded to take off her nightgown, revealing her shapely upper body. Sha Sha was asleep in the central bed, her brow slightly furrowed.

“Did Sha Sha wake up last night?” Jia Ming asked, inserting the flower bouquet into a vase.

“Yeah, she woke up once at eleven o’clock and asked for you. I just told her that Mom asked you to go home and sleep,” Ling Jing said, putting on her long pants and thin cotton socks. She sat on the edge of the bed, adjusting her bangs, and looked at Jia Ming as he examined Sha Sha’s face. “Last night… last night, I heard those people outside say that the police and the armed police had simultaneously launched an operation, and the Yongsheng Gang (Everlasting Prosperity Gang) was wiped out overnight. Their boss was arrested and then disappeared. Jia Ming, you… you weren’t hurt, were you?”

“Yeah, I didn’t do that. I’m fine.” He looked back and saw the faint dark circles under Ling Jing’s eyes. She must have stayed up all night with Sha Sha, who had just undergone surgery, and also worried about him going out to kill people. She must have been having a restless sleep too. He went over and hugged her shoulders, and Ling Jing sat on the edge of the bed and wrapped her arms around him.

“Don’t worry, I’m here.”

“Mmm…” Ling Jing hummed softly, rubbing her forehead against his chest. After hugging for a long time, Ling Jing suddenly released him with a smile. Her smile was radiant. “Okay, I’m relieved now that you’re safe. I’m going to brush my teeth and wash my face in Mom’s office. I want a big bowl of breakfast!”

“No problem, as long as you can finish it.”

“Of course, I can.” She jumped off the bed and pulled at her shoelaces. “I’m feeling good, so my appetite is naturally big!”

“Oh? Really?”

“Ugh.” Seeing Jia Ming looking at her belly with suggestive intent, Ling Jing smiled and rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t think about me having your baby now. I don’t want to be a sixteen-year-old single mother. Dad and Mom would kill me.”

Jia Ming shrugged and watched Ling Jing run out like a gust of wind, bursting into laughter.

He pulled open the curtains, divided the breakfast into bowls. The golden sunlight streamed in through the window, and Sha Sha murmured, “Mmm…” She lazily opened her eyes, looked at Jia Ming sitting next to the bed, and gave him a gentle smile. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, my wife.”

He gently helped Sha Sha sit up a little, and she winced slightly, likely because of the incision from the appendectomy. Jia Ming asked, “Does your wound hurt?”

“Yeah, it started hurting last night when the anesthetic wore off. But it’s fine.” She tilted her chin and smiled. “No big deal.”

“Cut, you got a cut on your belly, and you call it no big deal? How about the wound on your hand? Is it serious?”

“I checked it last night when I woke up. It’s just a little bruised. Mom Ye also put a bandage on it. What are you doing?” Sha Sha struggled slightly, but she had no resistance to Jia Ming unbuttoning her shirt. She half-heartedly pushed him as he unbuttoned her top, revealing her bra and the bandage on her arm. “See, it’s fine. Do you really want to take off the bandage and check? It’s really not serious. If my stomach hadn’t suddenly hurt yesterday, those guys would have been knocked out… wait, why are you still unbuttoning it?”

“I want to look at the scar where they…”

“But this is a hospital…”

“It’s even more interesting to do it in a hospital.”

“Go… you’ve been watching too many制服诱惑 (zhì fú yòu huò) (制服诱惑 – Uniform Temptation) tapes…”

“But you’re the one who brought the tapes home…”

Sha Sha had just undergone surgery, and she was already weak. After resisting for a while, she eventually let Jia Ming unbutton her clothes completely, revealing the stitched-up incision on the side of her lower abdomen. Sha Sha muttered, “This time, I’m definitely going to have an ugly scar.”

“It’s beautiful. I like it.” Jia Ming looked up and smiled.

“But I don’t.”

“It’s for my eyes only. I like it, that’s all.”

“Ugh…”

Although she said she didn’t care, Sha Sha still smiled contentedly. Her hands were at her sides, letting him look at the scar. Because the incision was quite low, she had lowered her pants a bit to avoid pain. Her groin area was faintly visible, and Jia Ming, knowing her body well, knew that he only had to go a little lower and he would see the most alluring part of her. They spent a moment in this suggestive posture, and Sha Sha sensed the intimacy. She said with a touch of reproach, “How long do you need to look at it?” She tried to pull up the blanket, but Jia Ming leaned forward.

“I want to kiss it.”

“Ah… uh, how can you do that? I’m still in pain. You big变态 (biàn tài) (变态 – pervert)… uh… hmm…”

His lips gently pressed down, soft, warm, and wet, with a slight sting of pain. Her hands, which were initially trying to stop Jia Ming, were now placed on his head but were gradually becoming immobile. An indescribable feeling welled up from her heart. She sat there, looking at the young man leaning over her abdomen, and her eyes suddenly felt moist.

It wasn’t just them who were constantly clinging to him. While they depended on him and stayed by his side, this man was also so devoted to them…

The next moment, the door opened.

…

…

“… And the surgery for bed number three… uh?”

Jia Ming and Sha Sha looked up towards the door at the same time. Duan Jingxian, the first to step into the room, also froze in her tracks. She instinctively blocked the nurse who was following behind her. The three of them stared at each other for a moment, their eyes locked. Duan Jingxian blinked, then shifted her gaze to the side. “Uh, that… cough… cough… we’ll come back later…”

She took a step back and closed the door.

In bed, Sha Sha pulled up the blanket and said in a distressed voice, “I’m dead now. You big pervert…”

…

…

“That… are Jia Ming and Sha Sha dating?”

Duan Jingxian asked in a somewhat distressed tone as she entered the office. Ling Jing, who was washing her face, paused mid-action. Duan Jingxian walked to the door of the washroom, her hand resting on the doorframe. She looked at her daughter’s washing actions. “I was going to do my rounds early, and when I opened the door, I saw Jia Ming and Sha Sha… um, Jia Ming was unbuttoning Sha Sha’s clothes, and he seemed to be looking at the wound very carefully… um, it felt a bit strange…”

“Uh, hehe… hehe…”

Ling Jing looked up, her face breaking into an awkward smile. “Mom, don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

“Of course not, I’m not a gossip. Besides, Sha Sha’s dad doesn’t care anyway.” She laughed and walked over to hug Ling Jing’s shoulders, looking at her daughter’s beautiful face, which resembled her own. “But you see, your dad and I have always thought that you and Jia Ming would be a good couple. We even talked about having a competition with Liu Zheng yesterday. Ah, who knew we would lose…”

Noticing her daughter’s slight stiffness, Duan Jingxian quickly changed the subject. “Okay, okay, I know, I know. Your dad and I aren’t trying to force you into an arranged marriage. We just think Jia Ming is really good. You just see him as a friend, then he’s just a friend, we won’t force anything… um, but your dad has always wanted to pass the martial arts school to him. Now… right, Jia Ming is with Sha Sha. Will the three of you living together affect you…”

“It’s fine, Mom.” Ling Jing smiled. “We’re friends first, lovers second. We’ve been playing together since we were little. Do you think love is bigger than friendship? Besides, Jia Ming and Sha Sha haven’t done anything outrageous…”

“Heh, I was just afraid that my daughter would be disliked for being the third wheel…”

“They dare!” Ling Jing clenched her fists.

…

…

The morning wind gently blew as a bicycle sped down the road, heading towards Sacred Heart Academy.

Sitting on the back seat, Ling Jing tightly hugged Jia Ming’s waist, telling him about her conversation with her mother.

“It seems I’m going to be your mistress and little wife for the rest of my life…”

Whenever this topic came up, Jia Ming wouldn’t say much in response. He would just say, “Sorry.” But this time, before Jia Ming could react, she laughed and bumped her cheek against Jia Ming’s back. “Don’t say sorry. It’s not your fault. It’s Sha Sha and I who are clinging to you. You can’t complain either. Just be good to us sisters, heh…”

Her silver bell-like laughter carried away on the wind from the back seat of the bicycle. In the bright morning light, a new day began.

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